16 minute read
mental health
ExAMInIng MEnTAl HEAlTH bEyOnD buRnOuT
As mental health gains overdue attention from corporates all across the globe, it’s time we shift the needle and stop shying away from addressing mental illness. Employers must make efforts to eliminate the stigma not just surrounding mental health, but also mental illness
by Bhavna Sarin
When you catch a cold or fever, do you say you are sick, or that your physical health isn’t good?
When an employee isn’t feeling well, do they avail sick leave or physical health leave?
But when it comes to not feeling good emotionally and mentally, we want to amplify mental health leave?
The global workforce and leadership have been tip-toeing around mental health, with little to negligible focus on mental illness, as well as the many forms of feeling mentally and emotionally unwell, which are beyond the scope of what is covered under clinical mental illnesses. There has been movement in addressing mental health, but not as much on mental health issues.
A significant chunk of mental well-being initiatives has been focused on creating awareness and establishing a business case around the impact of mental wellness on productivity, in the hopes to draw sincere attention to this grave concern. And in the process, we lost sight of the need for awareness on mental illness, how individuals cope and co-exist with these conditions and the role of employers in supporting their employees as they battle mental illness.
This piece dives into what mental illness and mental health encapsulate, the impact of underlying mental health concerns on the day-to-day functioning of the workforce, and exploring the various facets of mental health beyond burnout.
Repeating the same mistake!
Similar to how a large number of employers assume employee engagement to be ‘fun at work’, a large number also believe that mental health is about excessive workload and stress. This mindset reinforces the belief that if the workload is managed efficiently, it would lead to better mental health, and consequently improved productivity. the workplace still tip-toe and try to find the positives, without delving deeper into the intricacies of mental health - mental illness - and associated concerns.
While mental health has been described as "a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and can contribute to his or her community", mental illness, on the other hand, is “a general term for a group of illnesses that may impact a person's thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and behaviors.” An article by an Australian healthcare channel, further states that mental illness can affect working
Managing mental health sure would lead to enhanced productivity, but that is an outcome, not the purpose of ensuring mental health.
We don’t ask employees to drive safely to ensure they can show up at work and work efficiently, do we? So why discriminate? Though there are campaigns around mental health awareness, they barely scratch the surface. Conversations at and personal relationships, and identifies some of the most common mental illnesses as: • Depression • Anxiety • Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) • Panic disorder • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) • Eating disorders • Schizophrenia • Bipolar disorder
While the aforementioned conditions are the most commonly known, it is not an exhaustive list. The extent and impact would vary from person to person. In the absence of good mental health, there is a drop in a person’s ability, capacity and drive to function or communicate with any other person. They don’t feel like talking to anyone, don’t respond to messages, cancel plans, and while they might be able to disconnect from personal relationships with lesser challenges, the ability or a mental health issue is at play.
Looking beyond burnout
For months now, the global economy has been striving to improve the mental well-being of the workforce, specifically, trying to help employees cope with the stressors of the pandemic and take some time to recoup. That sure is needed, however, more needs to be done for meaningful effect.
Are we having conversations on:
privilege to disconnect from work doesn’t come easy. Why? Because workplaces haven’t yet made room for conversations such as, “I don’t think I have the mental capacity to work today” or even “I don’t feel like working today”. And no, this isn’t about laziness. This is about internal drive and the ability to function rationally, which are likely to be impacted - in some cases become non-existent - when • Pre-existing mental health concerns and how individuals living with them are coping • A spike in anxiety when employees are asked to turn on cameras • Coping with the immense mental strain fueled by the pandemic • Sharing how therapy helped us cope, beyond handing helpline numbers
Exhaustion, stress, and burnout, are add-ons for many professionals all across the globe, with many struggling to minimize the worklife conflict and deal with pressing, pre-existing mental health issues. And organizations are taking steps to deal with the uptick of these add-ons. However, the inability or unwillingness to acknowledge the existence of mental illness is forcing individuals to put up an act of “normalcy” while they feel crushed and remain restless emotionally.
Enabling openness and psychological safety
In a benchmarking poll by Total Brain, 86 percent of respondents stated that they want their employer to build a corporate culture that encourages more candid conversations about mental health and associated challenges.
Total Brain cites earlier research by the American Psychiatric Association which showed over half of US workers were not comfortable talking about mental health in the workplace and over a third were anxious about the consequences of bringing it up.
“Measuring and benchmarking mental health issues within an organization; bringing conversations to the forefront; and encouraging your employees, especially those in leadership positions, to open up about their own challenges has never been
more important,” said Louis Gagnon, CEO of Total Brain. Gagnon added that while many employers and leaders exhibit empathy and understanding, they’re not fully aware of the “range of issues and challenges their employees are facing, nor the fear employees have about coming forward seeking help.”
While role modeling conversations is crucial, it would be unfair to expect leaders to open up about their personal challenges, especially in the absence of psychological safety that keeps employees from opening up as well. In such scenarios, leaders being human too, would feel as vulnerable and exposed, as employees. So how do we do it? Among the many ways to foster psychological safety, a key mechanism is to break down misconceptions and educate the workforce. A lack of understanding is a key contributor to the ignorance we often display, which could be unintentional too. This is why educating the workforce, as well as leadership on mental health issues, is crucial to drive meaningful change and foster a safe workplace that paves the way for honest conversations, and eliminates the sense of threat to acceptance by peers, job security, and career path in the organization.
The time to act is now
“After decades of neglect and underinvestment in mental health services, the COVID-19 pandemic is now hitting families and communities with additional mental stress. Those most at risk are frontline healthcare workers, older people, adolescents, and young people, those with pre-existing mental health conditions, and those caught up in conflict and crisis. We must help them and stand by them. Even when the pandemic is brought under control, grief, anxiety, and depression will continue to affect people and communities. Policies must support and care for those affected by mental health conditions, and protect their human rights and dignity..." The above was the background to the policy brief on COVID-19 and mental health that was launched by the United Nations in May 2020. A year later, we have made progress, however, are yet to tackle mental well-being for everything it encompasses. There is an urgent need to bring immediate attention to a much-needed alteration in how the global economy is addressing mental illness and mental health, to have any chance at beating the looming psychological pandemic. We must not let the lines blur and remember that mental well-being is about the health of an individual, not a stock check on their capabilities and limitations or a function of their workload.
leaders Need to Be Cheerleaders For the New ways oF workiNg, aNd early adopters oF the resoUrCes orgaNizatioNs implemeNt: aLaN maY, exeCUtive viCe presideNt aNd ChieF people oFFiCer For hewlett paCkard eNterprise
by Mastufa Ahmed
Alan May is the Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In this role, Alan has worldwide responsibility for Hewlett Packard Enterprise development and organization effectiveness, benefits and compensation, staffing and retention, global inclusion and diversity, and HR processes and information management.
Prior to joining Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Alan worked at The Boeing Company for eight years, where he most recently led HR for the company’s Commercial Airplanes division. He was also head of HR for their Defense, Space & Security business and before that served as the company’s Vice President of Strategy, Compensation, and Benefits.
Before joining The Boeing Company, Alan was the Chief Talent and Human Resources Officer for Cerberus Capital Management, a leading private equity firm based in New York. Alan also held a number of senior HR and Business Integration roles over a 15-year career at PepsiCo, culminating with an assignment as Senior Vice President, Human Resources, for the rapidly growing Quaker, Tropicana, and Gatorade divisions.
Here are the excerpts.
themselves as what is important to them through this crisis. That’s why I think that, among other things, flexibility and work/life balance are here to stay. Enterprises will continue to find new and better ways to show up and support their workforce through trying times. And health and wellness are going to be priorities for years to come. If we’ve learned anything from the pandemic, it’s that life is short and can change in an instant.
With uncertainty still abound in countries such as India, what should be the approach of organizations globally to continue to adapt and come out stronger on the other side?
If your focus isn’t on your team, you’re doing it wrong. For example, in India, HPE mobilized a huge amount of resources we never contemplated having to procure for our team members: oxygen concentrators, dedicated hospital beds, ambulance services, N-95 masks, and other personal care items that were in short supply locally. We’re not a medical provider, but that’s what our team on the ground was telling us was needed by our people, so we made it happen.
Again, I think one big takeaway from this crisis is that organizations will have to continue to find new and creative ways to step up for their workforce when things get hard. It’s not only good corporate citizenship, but it’s just fundamentally the right thing to do.
People have learned a lot about themselves from this pandemic as what is important to them through this crisis. So, flexibility and work/ life balance are here to stay
Do you think the worst part of this crisis is behind us? And it's time to put the genie back in the bottle? Or the world of work has changed forever? How will the post-pandemic world look like?
It depends on where you are. Certainly, some countries such as India are in the throes of very serious outbreaks right now, and vaccine access is very uneven across the globe. But there’s substantial cause for optimism that we did not have at this time last year.
I’ve long rejected the idea of a “new normal” – people just won’t tolerate that. They want their lives back. But that doesn’t mean that nothing will change, because people have learned a lot about
Do you think the toughest leadership test is looming now that
businesses are striving hard to rebound from the crisis?
I think that we’ve been in a continuum of leadership tests related to the pandemic, and recovering from it is yet another one of those tests. There was no playbook for how to respond to the pandemic, and there isn’t for how to recover. At HPE, we’ve taken up the motto “assess, address, and adapt” throughout the COVID-19 crisis, because that’s really all you can do in a once in a lifetime event.
The biggest question for executive leadership today at many companies is envisioning the future of work post-pandemic. Remote or hybrid work is here to stay, as many experts say, but some of the biggies in the corporate world are rallying to get employees back in offices. How do you see this?
I think the hybrid work environment is here to stay, at least
for the foreseeable future, because that’s what our team members are telling us they want. 70 percent of HPE team members have told us that they do not want to be at the office five days a week when we come out of the pandemic. Flexibility is an important consideration for candidates, and there’s a war for talent – particularly in tech. Ultimately, employees who feel supported not just at work, but as a whole person, are going to be more engaged and productive. That’s been our experience at HPE, so we’re meeting our team members where they are and building a working model that fits their lives, rather than the other way around.
As companies pick themselves up and start trudging on in the COVID-stricken world with new working arrangements, how important is getting work ‘culture’ right especially in the hybrid world of work?
Culture is the lynchpin, and to be sure there are challenges in maintaining a strong culture in a
hybrid or remote environment. I don’t think you have to adapt your culture as much as you adapt your approach to living it. As we’ve designed our go-forward working model and begin to bring people back to the office, HPE has been extremely intentional about offering programming, tools, and resources that keep people connected and promote collaboration, team building, and culture in both in-person and virtual environments. Our offices are also being reimagined as culture and collaboration centers, with fewer dedicated workstations, designed to attract hybrid workers to the office specifically for meetings and social and culture events.
What should be the role of leaders to make sure their work cultures are adaptable now that it’s harder to solidify shared beliefs with distributed workforce? Can technology help reinvent work culture?
Leaders need to be cheerleaders for the new way of working, and early adopters of the resources an organization implements to bridge the gap between physical and virtual office environments. The tone is set at the top, and if employees don’t see their leaders adopting the same mindset they’re asking of others, engagement will suffer. Technology is one of several tools that can be used to promote continuity of culture from office to virtual environment, but it won’t succeed without leadership.
Do you think the pandemic has offered an opportunity to get social inequalities, diversity, and inclusion right, now that the pandemic has elevated dispari-
ties and gaps? What questions should businesses ask for a better future of work?
I think the pandemic has certainly shone an even brighter light on social and racial inequities. Everyone is in a different place in their diversity, equity, and inclusion journey; so I’d say it depends on the organization. At HPE, unconditional inclusion had been part of our culture well before the pandemic, although it is a process of continuous improvement for us and we’re always striving to be better. What the disparities we witnessed throughout this ordeal have caused us to do is strengthen our resolve in this space.
What have you learned about the best ways to embrace disruption and harness uncertainty as an inflection point for reinvention? What are your priorities at HPE moving forward?
At HPE, we take the approach of “assess, address, and adapt.” You can’t control outside forces like a pandemic. You can survive and thrive in spite of them if you’re committed to finding the opportunity. The last year has given us the opportunity to rethink the employee experience and drive engagement and trust in leadership, which are now at the highest levels in the history of the company. And with respect to our business, COVID-19 has really validated our strategy to meet customers where they are in their digital transformations by offering our entire portfolio in a flexible, consumption-based as-a-service model.
Going forward, my focus is on continuing to drive our culture as we recover from the pandemic, attracting and retaining top talent in a highly competitive environment, and progressing HPE in its journey to be unconditionally inclusive. Those priorities are the same as they were before the pandemic, but how we deliver on them has been changed.
